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After the death of Henry IV in 1610, his widow, Marie de Médicis, became regent to her son, Louis XIII. Having acceded to a much more powerful position, she decided to erect a new palace for herself, adjacent to an old hôtel particulier owned by François de Luxembourg, Duc de Piney, which is now called the Petit Luxembourg and is the residence of the president of the French Senate.

Marie de Médicis bought the Hôtel de Luxembourg and its fairly extensive domain in 1612 and commissioned the new building, which she referred to as her Palais Médicis,[4] in 1615. Its construction and furnishing formed her major artistic project, though nothing remains today of the interiors as they were created for her, save some architectural fragments reassembled in the Salle du Livre d'Or.[5] The suites of paintings she commissioned, in the subjects of which she expressed her requirements through her agents and advisors, are scattered among museums.

Floor plan (1752) shows the large enclosed cour d'honneur and the long Rubens gallery in the right wing

Marie de Médicis installed her household in 1625, while work on interiors continued. The apartments in the right wing on the western side were reserved for the Queen and the matching suite to the east, for her son, Louis XIII, when he was visiting (floor plan).

The gallery in the east wing had been intended for the display of paintings celebrating Henri IV, and buildings housing stables and services were planned to either side of the pavilions flanking the entrance on the street, but these projects remained unfinished in 1631, when the Queen Mother was forced from court,[8] following the "Day of the Dupes" in November. Louis XIII commissioned further decorations for the Palace from Nicolas Poussin and Philippe de Champaigne.

In 1715, the palace became the residence of Marie Louise Elisabeth d'Orleans, Duchess of Berry (1695-1719). The widowed Duchess was notoriously promiscuous, having the reputation of a French Messalina, relentlessly driven by her unquenchable thirst for all pleasures of the flesh. The Luxembourg palace and its gardens thus became stages where the radiantly beautiful princess acted out her ambitions, enthroned like a queen surrounded by her court. In some of her more exclusive parties, Madame de Berry also played the leading part in elaborate "tableaux-vivants" that represented mythological scenes and in which she displayed her appetizing young person impersonating Venus or Diana. According to various satirical songs which scurrilously evoked her amours "the Lady of the Luxembourg" hid several pregnancies, shutting herself up from society when about to give birth. Her taste for strong liquors and her sheer gluttony also scandalised the court.[10] On 21 May 1717, Madame de Berry received Peter the Great at the Luxembourg. She welcomed the visiting Tsar splendidly dressed in a magnificent sack-back gown which showcased her voluptuous bosom as well as her mischievous face but also helped conceal her growing corpulence for she was then in an "interesting condition".[11]

On 28 February 1718, the Duchess of Berry threw a magnificent party for her visiting aunt, the Duchess of Lorraine. The entire palace and its gardens were elaborately illuminated. The lavish banquet was followed by a masked ball. Madame de Berry made a dazzling appearance before her guests. She was then in the full splendor of her youthful beauty and pride and acted as if she were the very incarnation of the goddess of love, mirth, beauty and sensual pleasures.[12] However, just over one year after this magnificent moment of festive glory, the Luxembourg palace became the stage of a shameful tragicomedy which ended in the harrowing demise of the haughty princess. The tempestuous life of Madame de Berry, the "Venus of the Luxembourg Palace", soon met a premature end. On 2 April 1719, after a grueling four-day labour, shut up in a small room of her palace, the young widow was delivered of a stillborn baby-girl, supposedly fathered by her lieutenant of the guards, the Count of Riom. Ill-prepared by her debauchery and raucous behavior, Berry's delivery was extremely troublesome and almost killed her. The Church refused her the Sacraments thus adding moral infamy to the physical tortures of the labouring woman. Saint-Simon wrote a very sarcastic description of this scandalous childbirth. Hoping to regain her health and undeceive the public that she had been confined, Madame de Berry left Paris and the Luxembourg palace. She died in her castle at La Muette on 21 July 1719 and, according to Saint-Simon, was found to be again pregnant.[13]

Plan of the corp de logis from 1804 to 1836 with the old senate chamber

Chalgrin's grand escalier

From 1799 to 1805 the architect Jean Chalgrin transformed the palace into a legislative building. He demolished the grand central staircase (escalier d'honneur), replacing it with a senate chamber on the first floor, which incorporated and destroyed Marie de Médicis' chapel on the garden side of the corps de logis. Chalgrin also enclosed the flanking terraces, making space for a library. At the same time he created a neo-classicalescalier d'honneur in the west wing, a single monumental flight enclosed by an ionic colonnade and covered with a cofferedbarrel vault, the construction of which resulted in the destruction of the long gallery that had formerly housed the cycle of paintings by Rubens.[15]

Beginning in 1835 the architect Alphonse de Gisors added a new garden wing parallel to the old corps de logis, replicating the look of the original 17th-century facade so precisely that it is difficult to distinguish at first glance the old from the new. The new senate chamber was located in what would have been the courtyard area in-between.[15]

During the German occupation of Paris (1940–1944), Hermann Göring took over the palace as the headquarters of the Luftwaffe in France, taking for himself a sumptuous suite of rooms to accommodate his visits to the French capital.

His subordinate, Luftwaffe Field Marshal Hugo Sperrle, was also given an apartment in the Luxembourg palace, and spent most of the war enjoying the luxurious surroundings. "The Field Marshal's craving for luxury and public display ran a close second to that of his superior, Goering; he was also his match in corpulence", wrote armaments minister Albert Speer after a visit to Sperrle in Paris.[citation needed]

The palace was a designated "strong point" for German forces defending the city in August 1944, but thanks to the decision of Commanding General Dietrich von Choltitz to surrender the city rather than fight, the palace was only minimally damaged.

From 29 July to 15 October 1946, the Luxembourg Palace was the site of the talks of Paris Peace Conference.

The Seven Statues facing the Senate Chamber's Semicircle (from left to right):

^E. de Barthélémy (ed.), Gazette de la Régence. Janvier 1715-1719, Paris, 1887, p.180. The Duchess of Berry was heavily pregnant at the time of Peter the Great's visit. She secretly gave birth a few weeks later in her castle at La Muette where she had secluded herself until the time of delivery. In spite of all efforts to conceal it, Madame de Berry's maternity was well known. It inspired the satirists who lampooned Berry's penchant for lovers writing up a long list of all possible fathers for her secret baby